So with Johnson and Kenseth tied atop the Cup standings—with a 27-point edge on Jeff Gordon, 28 on Kevin Harvick and 36 on Kyle Busch—Kenseth has a chance to be the guy to continue in the footsteps of 2011 champion Tony Stewart and 2012 champion Brad Keselowski to break the Johnson dynasty.

Three races remain, starting with Sunday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway, to determine if Kenseth can add to his lonely 2003 championship trophy or if Johnson just adds another to crowded trophy case.

"I don't know that I've really felt that,” Kenseth said about the anti-Johnson crowd possibly gravitating toward him. “Hopefully you'll always have people that are your fans and you're always going to have people that aren't your fan.

“There's going to be people that wish you success and people that wish you don't have success. I think that's just normal, that's kind of sports. That's the way it goes.”

Kenseth, who drives a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, might even have those outside the Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet camp pulling for him.

Having spent his first 13 Cup seasons at Roush Fenway Racing, Kenseth has a solid relationship with many over there, continuing to talk to many of them—except for general manager Robbie Reiser and team owner Jack Roush.

“I’m rooting myself, for those three guys ahead of me … to have trouble three weeks in a row,” said Roush Fenway driver Greg Biffle, who is eighth in points. “That's what any driver is rooting for (but) I'm pretty good friends with Matt.

“He was my teammate for a long time. We had a decent relationship. Process of elimination, what guy are you going to pick? If you got to root for somebody else besides yourself, I mean, he's the obvious one for me anyway.”

Kenseth is pretty much the obvious one for former teammate Carl Edwards, too.

“It's hard for me to think of him as not my teammate because of how much time we spent under the same roof,” Edwards said.

“To me, as much as I hate to see him do well at another organization—I wish he was doing it here—I think it's good to see him have the success because he definitely works hard and has given his life to racing.”

Edwards and Kenseth had an infamous run-in early in Edwards’ career when he faked a punch at Kenseth as they left Martinsville in 2007.

“Once I understood him and I assume he understood me a little better, I think that we were as good a teammates as I've ever had,” Edwards said. “I think a lot of Matt, and I think he was a huge asset to our team.”

Another guy who some might think would be rooting against Kenseth actually is rooting for him: Drew Blickensderfer, fired as Kenseth’s crew chief one race into the 2010 season, considers Kenseth a good friend. The duo won the 2009 Daytona 500 and the following race at California to open their relationship but then after 35 winless races, Blickensderfer lost the job.

The afternoon that he was removed as Kenseth’s crew chief, Blickensderfer got an email and call from Kenseth. From then on, they were good friends and continue to talk and even go to the same church.

“I was hurt,” Blickensderfer said. “I felt like I failed something.

“I didn’t want to fail with a driver of great caliber. … Matt still had confidence in me afterwards. He said, ‘We need a change here, I don’t know if it’s you, we just need to do something different.’”

Blickensderfer said people don’t realize why Kenseth is such an asset to a race team.

“The Matt Kenseth that comes in Monday morning and sits in your office and talks about the global view of the company is far advanced to what more drivers do,” Blickensderfer said. “He wants to know deep down what’s going on with chassis.

“He doesn’t tell you what springs to put in, but he’s a good organizer of that. … He’s real (in his evaluation) and that leadership is probably helping Joe Gibbs a lot right now.”

Outside the garage, the Kenseth storyline of a driver always hesitant to change then making a change and being successful could resonate with fans. The fact that he also is reviving the glory days of a car and crew that had success with Tony Stewart also should make him a fan favorite.

But most of all, he’s just not Johnson.

“When someone wins as much as (Johnson), you probably have people that like to see somebody beat them and then there's other people that like that, they like to cheer for the dynasty and they like to see the same guy and team dominate and then there's people who cheer for the underdog,” Kenseth said.

“I think that everybody likes something different. If everybody just liked the same driver and the same team and whatever, that wouldn't be real exciting.”

Kenseth won’t turn away the Johnson haters but he also isn’t trying to cater to them.

“I haven’t got a feeling like people walk up to you and wish bad things on somebody else or anything like that,” Kenseth said. “I have a lot of people who walk up, that makes you feel good that say they're pulling for you and they're happy you're doing good and that kind of thing.